Human Elements Blog

Human resources professionals know that "at-will employment” is a concept that covers more complex ground than the seemingly straight-forward phrase implies. At face value, it appears to imply a company can bid farewell to a worker for any given reason—or even no...

Businesses often have regulars—customers that stop in fairly often, spend their money, and stick around longer than the brief moment the simple transaction requires. They might linger for hours, make friends with other regulars, even get to know the employees by name....

HR managers—even the most seasoned ones—can find navigating Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) rules and requirements out. People get sick, families grow, and other life events happen in employees’ lives—FMLA is a labor law that requires companies (if covered) to...

Payroll management, in an ideal world, would be smooth, easy and accurate. Tracking systems would never glitch, no one would ever have an oops and forget to clock in or out, and employees would always be 100% honest about their timesheets. Sorry to be the one to break...

Human resources management—and everyone else in the upper levels of a company—are charged with helping employees do their best. One of the ways to bring about improved performance is coaching. What is coaching? Let’s turn to the words of one of the most celebrated...

Human resources management shouldn’t ever have to deal with sexual harassment—unfortunately, it’s one of the issues a good HR pro should be prepared to wrestle with. Thanks to Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby and other fallen stars, we’re seeing myriad...

Human resources managers can’t expect staff to be at work all the time, day in and day out. Whether it’s to recuperate from an illness, or to recharge the mental batteries with a vacation, a few days away from the office are good for staff health and morale....

Human resources management professionals unfortunately are prone to overlooking one useful item in their HR toolbox: the exit interview. True, the event can be awkward and uncomfortable for the folks on both sides of the table. However, if executed intelligently and...

One tough truth of HR management: employees come and employees go—even if your company is a perfect personnel paradise and you treat your staff like royalty. Factors on the company’s half of the equation (poor performance, for example) and reasons on the staff side...

Farewells can be difficult—but if you’re in human resources management, they can be downright painful. Sure, sometimes poor performance, bad attitude or other shortcomings dictate a goodbye, but if you don’t follow the proper steps and procedure, you could be in for...